In a area identified for its tumultuous alternate, one thought remained remarkably constant for hundreds of years: Latin The usa is Catholic.
The area’s 500-year transformation right into a Catholic stronghold gave the impression capped in 2013, when Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina was once elected as the primary Latin American pope. As soon as a missionary outpost, Latin The usa is now the center of the Catholic Church. It’s house to over 575 million adherents – over 40% of all Catholics international. The following-largest areas are Europe and Africa, every house to twenty% of the arena’s Catholics.
But underneath this Catholic dominance, the area’s spiritual panorama is converting.
First, Protestant and Pentecostal teams have skilled dramatic expansion. In 1970, simplest 4% of Latin American citizens recognized as Protestant; by way of 2014, the proportion had climbed to just about 20%.
However whilst Protestant ranks swelled, some other pattern was once quietly gaining flooring: a rising proportion of Latin American citizens forsaking institutional religion altogether. And, as my analysis presentations, the area’s spiritual decline presentations a stunning distinction from patterns in other places. Whilst fewer Latin American citizens are figuring out with a faith or attending products and services, private religion stays sturdy.
Girls referred to as ‘animeras,’ who pray for the souls of the deceased, stroll to a church for Day of the Useless festivities in Telembi, Ecuador.
AP Picture/Carlos Noriega
Spiritual decline
In 2014, 8% of Latin American citizens claimed no faith in any respect. This quantity is two times as top as the share of people that have been raised with out a faith, indicating that the expansion is fresh, coming from individuals who left the church as adults.
Alternatively, there have been no complete find out about of spiritual alternate in Latin The usa since then. My new analysis, revealed in September 2025, attracts on 20 years of survey information from over 220,000 respondents in 17 Latin American international locations. This information comes from the AmericasBarometer, a big, region-wide survey carried out each two years by way of Vanderbilt College that specializes in democracy, governance and different social problems. As it asks the similar faith questions throughout international locations and over the years, it gives an surprisingly transparent view of adjusting patterns.
Total, the choice of Latin American citizens reporting no spiritual association surged from 7% in 2004 to over 18% in 2023. The proportion of people that say they’re religiously unaffiliated grew in 15 of the 17 international locations, and greater than doubled in seven.
On moderate, 21% of other people in South The usa say they don’t have a non secular association, in comparison with 13% in Mexico and Central The usa. Uruguay, Chile and Argentina are the 3 least spiritual international locations within the area. Guatemala, Peru and Paraguay are essentially the most historically spiritual, with fewer than 9% who determine as unaffiliated.
Every other query students most often use to measure spiritual decline is how steadily other people pass to church. From 2008 to 2023, the proportion of Latin American citizens attending church at least one time a month reduced from 67% to 60%. The proportion who by no means attend, in the meantime, grew from 18% to twenty-five%.
The generational trend is stark. Amongst other people born within the Nineteen Forties, simply over part say they attend church frequently. Every next era presentations a steeper decline, shedding to simply 35% for the ones born within the Nineteen Nineties. Spiritual association presentations a equivalent trajectory – every era is much less affiliated than the only ahead of.
Non-public religiosity
Alternatively, in my find out about, I additionally tested a lesser-used measure of religiosity – person who tells a unique tale.
That measure is “religious importance”: how necessary other people say that faith is of their day-to-day lives. We would possibly call to mind this as “personal” religiosity, versus the “institutional” religiosity tied to formal congregations and denominations.
Other people attend a Mass marking the World Day towards Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on June 26, 2024.
AP Picture/Rodrigo Abd
Like church attendance, total spiritual significance is top in Latin The usa. In 2010, more or less 85% of Latin American citizens within the 17 international locations whose information I analyzed stated faith was once necessary of their day-to-day lives. Sixty % stated “very,” and 25% stated “somewhat.”
By way of 2023, the “somewhat important” team declined to 19%, whilst the “very important” team grew to 64%. Non-public spiritual significance was once rising, whilst association and church attendance have been falling.
Spiritual significance presentations the similar generational trend as association and attendance: Older other people generally tend to file upper ranges than more youthful ones. In 2023, 68% of other people born within the Nineteen Seventies stated faith was once “very important,” in comparison with 60% of the ones born within the Nineteen Nineties.
But whilst you evaluate other people on the identical age, the trend reverses. At age 30, 55% of the ones born within the Nineteen Seventies rated faith as essential. Examine that with 59% amongst Latin American citizens born within the Nineteen Eighties, and 62% amongst the ones born within the Nineteen Nineties. If this pattern continues, more youthful generations may ultimately display higher private spiritual dedication than their elders.
Association vs. trust
What we’re seeing in Latin The usa, I’d argue, is a fragmented trend of spiritual decline. The authority of spiritual establishments is waning – fewer other people declare a religion; fewer attend products and services. However private trust isn’t eroding. Spiritual significance is maintaining stable, even rising.
This trend is moderately other from Europe and america, the place institutional decline and private trust generally tend to transport in combination.
80-six % of unaffiliated other people in Latin The usa say they consider in God or the next energy. That compares with simplest 30% in Europe and 69% in america.
Sizable proportions of unaffiliated Latin American citizens additionally consider in angels, miracles or even that Jesus will go back to Earth of their lifetime.
In different phrases, for lots of Latin American citizens, leaving at the back of a non secular label or skipping church does now not imply leaving religion at the back of.
An Aymara Indigenous non secular information blesses a statue of child Jesus with incense after an Epiphany Mass at a Catholic church in Los angeles Paz, Bolivia, on Jan. 6, 2025.
AP Picture/Juan Karita
This unique trend displays Latin The usa’s distinctive historical past and tradition. Because the colonial length, the area has been formed by way of a mixture of spiritual traditions. Other people steadily mix parts of Indigenous ideals, Catholic practices and more recent Protestant actions, developing private kinds of religion that don’t all the time are compatible well into anybody church or establishment.
As a result of monks have been steadily scarce in rural spaces, Catholicism advanced in lots of communities with little direct oversight from the church. House rituals, native saints’ gala’s and lay leaders assisted in shaping spiritual lifestyles in additional impartial techniques.
This truth demanding situations how students most often measure spiritual alternate. Conventional frameworks for measuring spiritual decline, advanced from Western Ecu information, depend closely on spiritual association and church attendance. However this means overlooks colourful religiosity outdoor formal constructions – and will lead students to fallacious conclusions.
Briefly, Latin The usa reminds us that religion can thrive whilst establishments fade.
